in the execution of the work, I have refolved to adopt and enlarge upon the excellent plan of Mr. Mason, in his Memoirs of Gray. Wherever narrative is neceffary to explain, connect, and fupply, I furnish it to the best of my abilities; but in the chronological series of Johnson's life, which I trace as diftinctly as I can, year by year, I produce, wherever it is in my power, his own minutes, letters, or converfation, being convinced that this mode is more lively, and will make my readers better acquainted with him, than even most of those were who actually knew him, but could know him only partially; whereas there is here an accumulation of intelligence from various points, by which his character is more fully understood and illuftrated. Indeed I cannot conceive a more perfect mode of writing any man's life, than not only relating all the most important events of it in their order, but interweaving what he privately wrote, and faid, and thought; by which mankind are enabled as it were to fee him live, and to "live o'er each scene" with him, as he actually advanced through the several stages of his life. Had his other friends been as diligent and ardent as I was, he might have been almost entirely preferved. As it is, I will venture to fay that he will be seen in this work more completely than any man who has ever yet lived. And he will be seen as he really was; for I profefs to write, not his panegyrick, which must be all praise, but his life; which, great and good as he was, must not be supposed to be entirely perfect. To be as he was, is indeed fubject of panegyrick enough to any man in this state of being; but in every picture there fhould be fhade as well as light, and when I delineate him without referve, I do what he himself recommended, both by his precept and his example: "If the biographer writes from perfonal knowledge, and makes hafte to gratify the publick curiofity, there is danger left his intereft, his fear, his gratitude, or his tenderness overpower his fidelity, and tempt him to conceal, if not to invent. There are many who think it an act of piety to hide the faults or failings of their friends, even when they can no longer fuffer by their detection; we therefore fee whole ranks of characters adorned with uniform panegyrick, and not to be known from one another but by extrinfick and cafual circumftances. Let me remember, (fays Hale) when I find myself inclined to pity a criminal, that there is likewife a pity due to the country.' If we owe regard to the memory of the dead, there is yet more respect to be paid to knowledge, to virtue, and to truth." Rambler, No. 60. What What I confider as the peculiar value of the following work, is, the quantity that it contains of Johnson's conversation; which is univerfally acknowledged to have been eminently inftructive and entertaining; and of which the specimens that I have given upon a former occafion, have been received with fo much approbation, that I have good grounds for fuppofing that the world will not be indifferent to more ample communications of a fimilar nature. That the conversation of a celebrated man, if his talents have been exerted in conversation, will best display his character, is, I trust, too well established in the judgement of mankind, to be at all fhaken by a fneering obfervation of Mr. Mason, in his Memoirs of Mr. William Whitehead, in which there is literally no Life, but a mere dry narrative of facts. I do not think it was quite neceffary to attempt a depreciation of what is univerfally esteemed, because it was not to be found in the immediate object of the ingenious writer's pen; for in truth, from a man so still and so tame, as to be contented to pass many years as the domestick companion of a fuperannuated lord and lady, conversation worth recording could no more be expected, than from a Chinese mandarin on a chimney-piece, or the fantastick figures on a gilt leather skreen. If authority be required, let us appeal to Plutarch, the prince of ancient biographers. Οὔτε ταῖς επιφανεσα ταις πράξεσι πάντως ἕνεςι δόλωσις ἄρετης ἢ κακίας, ἀλλὰ πρᾶγμα βραχύ πολλάκις καὶ ῥῆμα, καὶ παιδιά τις ἔμφασιν ἤθοις ἐποίησεν μάλλον ἢ μάχραι μεριονεχροι, παρατάξεις αἱ μέγισαι, καὶ πολιορχία πόλεων. "Nor is it always in the most distinguished atchievements that men's virtues or vices may be best discerned; but very often an action of small note, a short saying, or a jeft, fhall diftinguish a perfon's real character more than the greatest fieges, or the most important battles"." To this may be added the fentiments of the very man whofe life I am am about to exhibit. "The business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatnefs, to lead the thoughts into domeftick privacies, and difplay the minute details of daily life, where exterior appendages are caft afide, and men excel each other only by prudence and by virtue. The account of Thuanus is with great propriety faid by its authour to have been written, that it might lay open to posterity the private and familiar character of that man, cujus ingenium et candorem ex ipfius fcriptis funt olim femper miraturi, whofe candour and genius will to the end of time be by his writings preferved in admiration. s Plutarch's Life of Alexander,-Langhorne's Tranflation, "There rences. "There are many invisible circumstances, which whether we read as enquirers after natural or moral knowledge, whether we intend to enlarge our fcience, or increase our virtue, are more important than publick occurThus Salluft, the great mafter of nature, has not forgot in his account of Catiline to remark, that his walk was now quick, and again slow, as an indication of a mind revolving with violent commotion. Thus the story of Melancthon affords a striking lecture on the value of time, by informing us, that when he had made an appointment, he expected not only the hour, but the minute to be fixed, that the day might not run out in the idlenefs of fufpence; and all the plans and enterprizes of De Wit are now of lefs importance to the world than that part of his perfonal character, which represents him as careful of his health, and negligent of his life. "But biography has often been allotted to writers, who feem very little acquainted with the nature of their task, or very negligent about the performance. They rarely afford any other account than might be collected from publick papers, but imagine themselves writing a life, when they exhibit a chronological series of actions or preferments; and have fo little regard to the manners or behaviour of their heroes, that more knowledge may be gained of a man's real character, by a fhort converfation with one of his servants, than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree, and ended with his funeral. "There are, indeed, fome natural reafons why thefe narratives are often written by fuch as were not likely to give much inftruction or delight, and why most accounts of particular perfons are barren and ufelefs. If a life be delayed till interest and envy are at an end, we may hope for impartiality, but muft expect little intelligence; for the incidents which give excellence to biography are of a volatile and evanefcent kind, fuch as foon escape the memory, and are tranfmitted by tradition. We know how few can pourtray a living acquaintance, except by his moft prominent and obfervable particularities, and the groffer features of his mind; and it may be easily imagined how much of this little knowledge may be loft in imparting it, and how foon a fucceffion of copies will lose all resemblance of the original "." I am fully aware of the objections which may be made to the minuteness on fome occafions of my detail of Johnson's converfation, and how happily it is • Rambler, No. 60. adapted adapted for the petty exercise of ridicule by men of fuperficial understanding, and ludicrous fancy; but I remain firm and confident in my opinion, that minute particulars are frequently characteristick, and always amufing, when they relate to a distinguished man. I am therefore exceedingly unwilling that almost any thing which my illuftrious friend thought it worth his while to exprefs, with any degree of point, fhould perifh. For this almoft fuperftitious reverence, I have found very old and venerable authority, quoted by our great modern prelate, Secker, in whofe tenth fermon there is the following paffage : " Rabbi David Kimchi, a noted Jewish commentator who lived above five hundred years ago, explains that paffage in the first Pfalm, His leaf also shall not wither, from Rabbins yet older than himself, thus: That even the idle talk, fo he expreffes it, of a good man ought to be regarded; the most superfluous things he faith are always of fome value. And other ancient authours have the fame phrase, nearly in the fame fenfe." Of one thing I am certain, that confidering how highly the small portion which we have of the table-talk and other anecdotes of our celebrated writers is valued, and how earnestly it is regretted that we have not more, I am justified in preserving rather too many of Johnfon's fayings than too few; efpecially as from the diverfity of difpofitions it cannot be known with certainty beforehand, whether what may feem trifling to fome, and perhaps to the collector himself, may not be most agreeable to many; and the greater number that an authour can please in any degree, the more pleasure does there arife to a benevolent mind. To those who are weak enough to think this a degrading task, and the time and labour which have been devoted to it mifemployed, I fhall content myself with oppofing the authority of the greatest man of any age, JULIUS CÆSAR, of whom Bacon obferves, that "in his book of Apothegms which he collected, we fee that he esteemed it more honour to make himself but a pair of tables, to take the wife and pithy words of others, than to have every word of his own to be made an apothegm or an oracle"." Having faid thus much by way of introduction, I commit the following pages to the candour of the publick. 7 Bacon's Advancement of Learning, Book I, SAMUEL 1709. SAMUEL JOHNSON was born at Lichfield, in Staffordshire, on the 18th of September, N. S. 1709; and his initiation into the Chriftian church was not delayed; for his baptism is recorded, in the register of St. Mary's parish in that city, to have been performed on the day of his birth: His father is there ftiled Gentleman, a circumstance of which an ignorant panegyrift has praised him for not being proud; when the truth is, that the appellation of Gentleman, though now loft in the indifcriminate affumption of Efquire, was commonly taken by thofe who could not boaft of gentility. His father was Michael Johnson, a native of Derbyshire, of obfcure extraction, who settled in Lichfield as a bookseller and stationer. His mother was Sarah Ford, defcended of an ancient race of fubftantial yeomanry in Warwickshire. They were well advanced in years when they married, and never had more than two children, both fons; Samuel, their first born, who lived to be the illuftrious character whose various excellence I am to endeavour to record, and Nathanael, who died in his twenty-fifth year. Mr. Michael Johnson was a man of a large and robuft body, and of a ftrong and active mind; yet, as in the most solid rocks veins of unsound substance are often difcovered, there was in him a mixture of that disease, the nature of which eludes the most minute enquiry, though the effects are well known to be a weariness of life, an unconcern about those things which agitate the greater part of mankind, and a general sensation of gloomy wretchedness. From him then his fon inherited, with fome other qualities, "a vile melancholy," which in his too ftrong expreffion of any disturbance of the mind, "made him mad all his life, at least not fober." Michael was, however, forced by the narrownefs of his circumstances to be very diligent in business, not only in his shop, but by occafionally reforting to feveral towns in the neighbourhood, fome of which were at a confiderable distance from Lichfield. At that time book fellers' fhops in the provincial towns of England were very rare, so that there was not one even in Birmingham, in which town old Mr. Johnson used to open a shop every market-day. He was a pretty good Latin scholar, and a citizen fo creditable as to be made one of the magistrates of Lichfield; and, being a man of good fenfe, and skill in his trade, he acquired a reasonable share of wealth, of which however he afterwards loft the greatest part, by engaging unsuccessfully in a manufacture of parchment. He was a zealous high-churchman and royalift, and retained his attachment to the unfortunate houfe of Stuart, though he reconciled himself, by cafuiftical arguments of expediency and neceffity, to take the oaths impofed by the prevailing power. Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3d edit. p. 213. There |